Robert Marion LA FOLLETTE, Jr., Congress, WI (1895-1953)

LA FOLLETTE, Robert Marion, Jr., (son of Robert Marion La Follette), a Senator from Wisconsin; born in Madison, Dane County, Wis., February 6, 1895; attended the public schools of Madison and Washington, D.C.; attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison 1913-1917; private secretary to his father 1919-1925; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate on September 9, 1925, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of his father, Robert M. La Follette; reelected as a Republican in 1928, and as a Progressive in 1934 and 1940, and served from September 30, 1925, to January 3, 1947; unsuccessful candidate for reelection as a Republican in 1946; chairman, Committee on Manufactures (Seventy-first and Seventy-second Congresses); a champion of organized labor, La Follette gained national prominence between 1936 and 1940 as chairman of a special Senate investigating committee, commonly called the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee, which exposed techniques used to prevent workers from organizing; author, economic-research consultant, and foreign aid advisor to the Truman administration; died in Washington, D.C., February 24, 1953, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound; interment in Forest Hill Cemetery, Madison, Wis.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Auerbach, Jerold. Labor and Liberty: The La Follette Committee and the New Deal. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966; Maney, Patrick J. ”Young Bob” La Follette: A Biography of Robert M. La Follette, Jr., 1895-1953. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1978.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present